[RESOLVED] XP machine will not boot up

[newstar]

Machine is a HP A1040N; Bios is American Megatrends, V2.58. Worked fine last night , but not this morning. Trouble started when during the initial boot up I plugged in a USB (HP Deskjet, all-in-one). Tried Last good configuration, then safe mode. Both resulted in a boot failure. I get the initial HP splash screen, then the Windows screen with the blue thermometer running. After a while I receive a screen with several boot options and the 30 seconds countdown to start normally, all of which just repeat the cycle.

I have the original Win XP Pro disk and would like to try a repair installation. In the Bios I changed the boot sequence to have the machine boot from the cd. Strangely, nothing changes other than the splash screens do no appear. After a few moments, I get the black screen with white lettering with the usual boot options, where the bottom line states that the machine will boot normally and begins the 30 second count down.

Any thoughts on the subject will be appreciated. Thanks for looking.

[Midknyte]

Did you unplug the printer and try booting?

You should run a hard drive diag before you try a repair. You can either go to the hard drive manufacturer's site or get UBCD from the link in my signature. You will need to know how to burn an .iso file to disc.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/14183...age-to-a-disc/

[newstar]

Midknyte, Printer is unplugged. I have a UBCD but am unable to get the machine to boot from the cd drive; even though I changed the boot sequence properly to boot first from the cd drive. Attached is a screen shot of the boob menu. Machine continue to start from hd.

[Midknyte]

Did you try both optical drives? Did you test your UBCD on another system?

[photolady]

Just checking but did you burn the .iso as an image, as Midknyte said in his first post?

[newstar]

Midknyte, I did not try the 2nd optical drive, but will do so and post back. Only have a single Windows machine but have 2- UBCD and have tried them both in the 1st optical drive. Will them in the 2nd one and post back.

Photolady, I believe the UBCDs were burned as .iso files, but am not sure. They were created about a year ago, possibly more.

[Midknyte]

Did your UBCDs work before? Remember, you need to burn the .iso as an IMAGE. If you just burned the file to the CD, it won't work.

You should run the Seatools diags on both the Seagate and Maxtor drives. Do the short test first. If the drives pass, run the long test.

[newstar]

Hooray! The UBCD is up and running in the 2nd optical drive. What tests should be run? Please advise. Thank you.

[jdc2000]

Run the manufacturer's hard drive test. If the hard drive manufacturer is unknown or does not have a test program, try the Seagate test.

[Midknyte]

You should run the Seatools diags on both the Seagate and Maxtor drives. Do the short test first. If the drives pass, run the long test.

Like I said, you have a Seagate and a Maxtor drive, so run Seatools.

[newstar]

The UBCD I have is 5.3.0. I've never used it and do not see an option for Seagate or Maxstor drives. IBM, WD, Fujuitsu are shown but not Seagate or Maxstor. Could you possibly point the way? Thanks.

[Midknyte]

Did you scroll down the menu? Seatools is near the bottom of the list alphabetically.

HDD > Diagnosis > press the down arrow to get to Seatools for DOS V2.23 > press Enter

[newstar]

Sea2.jpgThanks for the heads up. The Seagate hd, (my boot drive) failed both the short and long tests. The Maxstor passed the short test and I am now running the long test on it. Do you think the Seagate hd needs to be replaced or is it possible to do a repair install of Win XP/SP3 without a re-format?

Btw... I would like to delete old attachments but am not able to clear out the list. When I go to Manage Attachments in the side bar of my account, several old ones are not shown. However when attempting to add an attachment to this post, they are all present.

[photolady]

You can't repair a dying hd. You'll have to replace it.

[newstar]

Many thanks to all once again for the terrific support. Gotta mark this one "Resolved".